CHAPTER VII

THE LITERARY AUTOGRAPHS OF THREE CENTURIES

From the days of Shakespeare and Spenser to those of Thackeray, Dickens, Tennyson, and Meredith—The value of literary autographs and MSS.

By a felicitous coincidence two literary autographs of more than ordinary interest have come to light at the moment I was preparing to write the present chapter. The first is the discovery in the Record Office by Dr. Wallace of the signed deposition of Shakespeare in an early seventeenth-century lawsuit, under the circumstances picturesquely set forth in the issue of Harper's Monthly Magazine for March, 1910. Without conceding to Dr. Wallace's "find" the supreme importance claimed for it by this able and patient examiner of ancient MSS., there can be no doubt that it deals a fatal and final blow to the Baconian theory. On the very day I read Dr. Wallace's article, Mr. J. H. Stonehouse[43] showed me several fictitious Shakespeare signatures fabricated by W. H. Ireland nearly forty years after the appearance of "Vortigern," for the avowed purpose of demonstrating his ability to imitate them. I cannot help thinking that Dr. Wallace's article lends increased interest to the letter of the Shakespearean actor, Dowton, which has already been alluded to in these pages.[44] In the elaborate essay in which the fifth Shakespeare signature has been enshrined will be found reproductions of the other four.[45]

Mr. Adrian Joline's theory as to the "eternity of interest" in literary autographs receives support from the exceptionally high prices they have commanded from the early days of the collection of MSS., when the signatures of kings and statesmen were almost at a discount. "I shall now," writes the chronicler of autograph prices in 1827, "set poetry, philosophy, history, and works of imagination against sceptres, swords, robes, and big-wigs.... Addison is worth £2 15s., Pope £3 5s., and Swift £3. Thomson has sold for £5 10s. and Burns for £3 10s. Churchill, the abuser of his compatriots, is valued at £1 18s. In philosophy Dr. Franklin reaches £1 17s.; in history, Hume is valued at £1 18s. and Gibbon at only 8s. The sturdy moralist Johnson ranks at £1 16s., the graceful trifler Sterne at £2 2s., Smollett at £2 10s., and Richardson at £1. Scott only yields 8s." In the half-century which intervened between 1827 and 1877 the prices of literary autographs had risen by leaps and bounds. In his catalogue of 1876 Mr. Waller asked £8 10s. for a short Latin essay of Thomas Gray, while Longfellow is priced at £1 18s., George Borrow at £3 3s., and Wordsworth at £1 1s. A fine letter of Schiller's is priced at £2 5s. In the next catalogue (1878) I find the following: Gibbon (a fine A.L.S.) £4 4s.; Voltaire (a 2 pp. A.L.S.) £3 15s.; Rousseau, a series of letters, including one of the philosopher, £3 10s.; five verses by Scott, £4 4s.; William Cowper, A.L.S., £3 7s. 6d.; Gray, a bundle of printed matter including one hundred lines of MS., £6 6s. In the late Mr. Frederick Barker's catalogues of the same period we have Edmund Burke (A.L.S.), £3 3s.; Thomas Hood (A.L.S.), £2 2s.; Voltaire (A.L.S.), £4 4s.; Horace Walpole (A.L.S.), £3 5s.; and a love-letter from John Keats to Fanny Brawne, £28.

In cataloguing the last-named item Mr. Barker says "that one of these celebrated letters realised by auction a short time since no less than £47." He also prices two A.L.S. of Robert Burns at £35 and £32 respectively. It will be remembered that in 1827 the price for a Burns letter was £3 10s. only. For a letter of Schiller (4 pp., 8vo, 1801) Mr. Barker asks £7 7s. In several catalogues of this period I find Keats letters averaging £20 to £30. The interesting catalogue issued by Mr. Barker in 1891 is remarkable for its wealth of literary rariora. Autograph letters are priced in it as follows: Schiller, £10 10s.; Burns, £25; Wordsworth, £3 3s.; Thackeray, £25. The last-named letter is worth describing. It was addressed to Miss Holmes, with a postscript on the inside of the envelope, and on the third sheet a clever sketch of Thackeray and Bulwer Lytton standing behind a lady seated at a piano. The letter itself runs thus:—

This letter would be now worth quite £50, and some of the fine illustrated Thackeray letters now in possession of Mr. Frank Sabin would probably be cheap at £100 each. Mr. Sabin's collection of the Thackerayana is probably unrivalled both as regards the United Kingdom and America.[46]

In Mr. Barker's 1891 catalogue there are four letters of Shelley, priced at £18 18s., £19 19s., £10 10s., and £9 9s. respectively. There is also a Schiller at £25, and an Alexander Pope covering one page 8vo only at £8. Darwin is already at £1 10s., Disraeli at 18s., and the Dickens letters average about £2. A letter of Dr. Priestley, worth perhaps 5s. in 1827, is now offered at £2 2s.

I am permitted by Mr. F. Sabin to reproduce a very early literary letter addressed in 1690 by John Evelyn to Samuel Pepys. It must not be forgotten that Evelyn was one of the earliest collectors of MSS.

Milton, to a certain extent, was a contemporary of both Pepys and Evelyn, but he had been dead sixteen years at the date of the letter now quoted. The value of Milton's autographs is fully discussed by Dr. Scott in the pages of The Archivist.[47] When the subject first attracted my attention early in 1904 much excitement was caused by the appearance in Sotheby's Salerooms of what was alleged to be 32 pp. of the MS. of "Paradise Lost." The value of the document was warmly discussed at the time and sensational bidding was anticipated. It was bought in, but I believe it was ultimately sold to an American collector for £5,000 or thereabouts. Mr. Quaritch now possesses a very fine Milton deed, which is priced at £420, and is dated November 27, 1623. It is signed by John Milton, as one of the witnesses to the Marriage Covenant between Edward Phillips of London and Anne, daughter of John Milton, Citizen and Scrivener of London.

Letters of Dryden and Cowley have fetched very high prices,[48] and the autograph of Edmund Waller is also rare, but Alexander Pope's letters are abundant, although they are much less valuable than those of Swift. A good letter of Pope can be obtained for from £7 to £10. The late Mr. Frederick Barker told me he was once asked as an autographic expert to advise a well-known nobleman, Lord H., who said he had a bundle of letters written by one of the Popes in his possession and desired to ascertain their value, but as they were merely signed "A Pope" he did not know which of the Holy Fathers was responsible for them! Mr. Barker of course identified the "bard of Twickenham" as their author. They were bound up under his supervision, and fetched over £200, but still the owner was not quite satisfied! Of the four Pope letters in my collection, only one has ever been published, and that but partially. It is of such manifest historical interest that I do not apologise for reproducing it in its entirety:—

Alexander Pope at Twickenham to Ralph Allen, Esq., Widcombe, Bath.

My other three Pope letters are unknown. They are addressed to Mr. Bethel on Tower Hill, London, Mr. Charles Ford in Park Place, and Mr. Jonathan Richardson, of Queen Square, London. The last-named was catalogued last year as written to Samuel Richardson. I gave £5 for it. Mr. Barker valued it at £8 in 1891. It provides an antidote to the unkind things Pope wrote about "Sulphureous" Bath on other occasions:—

The letters of Horace Walpole, who generally wrote for posterity, are valuable,[49] but by no means as costly as those of Thomas Gray. Mr. Quaritch lately showed a group of holograph letters, illustrating the "quadruple alliance" of Gray, Walpole, West, and Ashton, which began at Eton. It included two fairly long letters of Gray and Walpole. I consider the collection very cheap at £55. Here is a characteristic unpublished note written by Horace Walpole to Hannah More, while the latter was staying with the Garricks in the Adelphi:—

Horace Walpole to Hannah More.

The value of Johnson's letters has varied very little during the past quarter of a century, an A.L.S. of exceptional interest often bringing £40 or £50. Possibly his historic letters to Macpherson and Chesterfield or his ultimatum to Mrs. Thrale would now fetch considerably more. In the Haber Sale at New York a 2 pp. 4to A.L.S. dated April 13, 1779, to Cadell brought £17. I possess several Johnson letters, many of them unpublished and written during the last year of his life. The following A.L.S. to Mr. Ryland was seemingly unknown to Dr. Birkbeck Hill:—

To Mr. Ryland, Merchant in London.

Six months before his death he writes thus to Mr. Nicoll on the subject of Cook's voyages:—

Curiously enough, one of the last subjects upon which Johnson concentrated his waning energies in 1783-84 was that of the possibilities of the balloon, which he persistently called "ballon."[52]

For some years I have been an assiduous collector of the letters and MSS. of George Crabbe. I now possess his two historic letters to Edmund Burke. It was in the earliest of these (once the property of Sir Theodore Martin) that he made his despairing appeal for pecuniary aid to save him from suicide or starvation. Fifty-one years later, George Crabbe, Rector of Trowbridge, lay a-dying. He receives in his sick-chamber the following letter from John Forster:—

John Forster to George Crabbe.

[Letter franked by Edward Lytton Bulwer.]

After Crabbe's death the following almost illegible draft of a reply was found amongst his papers:—

History had repeated itself, only the rÔles were reversed. In 1832 the benefactor was Crabbe, and the distressed man of letters Hunt!

I have elected to speak of Burke amongst the writers, although he can claim a high place amongst the statesmen. His letters are always valuable, although the price fetched for two exceptionally fine specimens at the Haber Sale (New York, December 10, 1909) was disappointing. A long letter, written in his twentieth year, brought only £4 8s.; a splendid letter from Bath a short time before his death was sold for £6 8s. The following letter from Edmund Burke to Mrs. Montagu (one of many I have the good fortune to possess) has a distinct vein of American interest:—

Passing to the nineteenth century, which was to witness the eclipse of the art of letter-writing as well as the disappearance of the frank, we come to the age of Keats, Shelley, Byron and Lamb. It was at the beginning of this eventful epoch that Goethe wrote the lines to BlÜcher, which form one of the shortest autographs I possess, but not the least curious or valuable:—

My friend, Mr. G. L. de St. M. Watson, gives me a forcible metrical translation: